Midnight Ramblings
by TheRealJules
Summary: A story about Shawn Spencer, as told by death. The death. But what is the only reason for death to come a-knockin? Somebody dies. Sorta AU, shules, but almost none that is direct. Just references. Pretty easy to ignore until the end.
1. Chapter 1

Hi. I'm Midnight. Or... I might as well be. I lead a very interesting life, to those who know of it. Then again, those who know about it are dead, or either God or the Devil. Yeah, they exist, but even though I know each of them personally, I still don't believe in them. And they can't say anything about it, because it would be impossible to fill my position with someone who does it as well as I do.

Once you've been doing what I do for so long, everything starts to look the same. I differentiate by color. And before you get all annoyed and earthly- seriously, you guys are ridiculous- I don't mean by race. I mean by- dear lord, this will sound stupid to you- by aura. I see people's light, their personality. I don't need appearances. After all, a person is just another person to me. I only wish everybody's light was the same intensity. Young people give off a much softer light. The softer the light, the younger the child.

And I hate it when I see children.

Babies are always white. Some teenagers have a lighter shade, showing how young they are at heart, but most lose all the white by the time they are thirteen. It's really sad, actually, because the people with lighter shades always seem to live longer.

I am the only one in the universe who's shade is jet black. What does that say about me?

Oh, you are probably so confused right now.

I don't remember much about myself. I am not important in all honestly. I do my job, and do it well, so I get to stick around just one person longer.

There are no doctors for me, seeing as I can't get sick. But I'm fairly certain I have Attention Deficit Disorder. You might be able to tell, seeing as I get really distracted from my train of thought really easily.

It's because my job takes a lot of focus, but only concentrated focus. I focus for maybe 20 minutes a day, total, but it is really hard focusing.

Oh, gosh, right, we were talking about me.

**Things I know for certain**

I am seventeen years old  
I have been seventeen years old for 4 years  
I am a girl.  
I named myself Midnight.  
I hate my job.

Yup, that's about it. Oh, what is my job? I was sort of hoping you'd figured that out by now. If not, well, I'm sure you'll pick it up.

On second thought, there are some redeeming qualities to being me. Like…

Nevermind.

**The Rules of Being Me**

I can't kill anyone.  
I can't save anyone.  
I can't dawdle.  
I can't get to know anyone.  
I can't have friends.  
I can't talk.  
I can't steal.

It isn't fair really. Isn't a seventeen year supposed to do all of that, and a whole lot more? I find myself breaking the rules quite often. Not the big ones. But I do dawdle quite a lot. I do get to know a few people, they just don't know I'm getting to know them. I did have a friend, but once she knew who I was, she stopped talking to me. Her name was Alice. She died in a magical place she called Wonderland. She told stories of rabbits, and growing and shrinking, of falling, and running, of evil queens and crazy men with hats, and talking animals.

People on earth talk about her a lot, but when I told her that, Alice said they have the story wrong. Who am I to judge, she's the dead one.

Dead people have different rules. The people in heaven can get away with pretty much everything. The people in hell, well, they don't really care.

That's why I can never decide who I hate more. Either the good people die, and I get a nice person to transport, or a bad person dies, and I have to transport them either way.

They can talk. They do talk. They rarely say nice things.  
They can remember. They do remember. They rarely shut up about their memories.

It's all the same, whether they are a good person, or a bad person.

So yes, I break the rules. The person who had my job before made a bad decision, if they were looking for strict compliance to the rules.

They probably weren't. See, there is only one person in my job at a time. The system is supposed to work. It is supposed to keep a good person in the job at all times.

I hold the record. Having said that, I am very picky. And it is hard to find a person who can handle my job, since I can't get to know them. Which is why I cheat. I break the rules. I dawdle, and I learn.

**Things I've learned**

How to read and write  
Politics are horrible  
People, in general, are bad

Every so often, I fall across someone so very interesting. Like Alice, for instance. She would have been great at my job. She's very dim, what I do wouldn't have much emotional impact on her. Only problem is the talking. She has so many stories to tell.

Also, I made a pact that the person I give my job to will not be a child. But I want someone pure at heart. Someone who decides who goes where. Sometimes there is a very fine line.

Criminals and thugs are easy. Everyday sinners? Not so much.

I don't pay much attention to religion when it comes time to pick who goes where. Religion doesn't make the person. The color does.

That's why Shawn Spencer attracted me so much. He is not one color, like most. He isn't two, he isn't three. He is everything. In my four years, I've never seen anything like him. People, occasionally, have a lot of colors. But theirs are stationary.

I dawdled on him the most, when I could. I spotted him on the street many times throughout my tenure. He attracted my attention from the time I first saw it, to when I retired.

**His Colors Swirled**

The red of anger  
The blue of stupidity  
The orange of brilliance  
The white of innocence  
The green of compassion  
The pink of love  
The yellow of cheerfulness  
The purple of pride  
The gray of humility  
The brown of gruffness  
The aqua of friendship  
The friggin magenta of oddities  
_The black of death_

The red often surfaces when he's around a man of mostly purple and brown, with a little bit of green, orange, red, and pink. They are clearly related, because it is highly unlikely to find people of many colors- that know each other- that aren't.

The pink nearly encompasses him when he's around a girl of yellow, orange, pink and gray. He loves her, and judging by the pink that eminates from them when they're together, she loves him back.

The aqua around his best friend. He's made mostly of aqua as well. It's clear that they mean the world to each other.

I've only seen his black once, and I'd like to keep that experience to myself, at least for now.

I think Shawn fakes blue around that lanky man of brown, purple, blue, and red. He seems mean. Why would anybody hurt a man of so many colors? I can see that it actually breaks Shawn Spencer's heart. How? It baffles me, truly.

He would be perfect for my job, that lanky fellow.

After all, _I_ broke The Fake Psychic's heart _three_ times.


	2. Catch Me From The Trees

"Okay team, this one is serious. The Treetop Killer." The blur of orange (brilliance, if you don't remember) clicks a button and a picture shows up on the screen.

It reads: _I'm skipping the whole "kill someone, build a reputation, then scare the police" thing. I find it cliché. So I'm just sending you this note. Also cliché, but hey, I don't really care. After all, I'm not the one who has a murder on their hands. Anyway, I heard about Yin/Yang, and -copy cat or not- I want a piece of that. So, Shawnie, You're up. But I don't believe in rhymes. Or hints, really. But it's no fun if you have no chance._

I think they're gross, inside and out. Eyes. School.

I'm really bad at hints. 

I'm sitting on the front desk counter, because I can. I dawdle here the most. I tried dawdling in DC, but there is too much stupidity there, and honestly, I have never been a fan of the color blue. And all of them are _so_ dark. It's pleasing to be around all this orange. Most people here have at least a little orange.

Shawn's girlfriend is talking now, about the killer. They have no M.O., no real motive, no execution so far.

I already know who this person is, of course, because I've picked her up. Andrea Summers. Seemed to be a sweet girl. Older, probably mid to early thirties.

**Fact**

You are going to die

Whether by homicide, patricide, suicide, manslaughter, infanticide, natural cause, accident, or any other cide, you are going to die. Accept it.

I've learned a lot of cop babble, hanging out here. I pride myself on it.

Anyhow, it is a fact of life. It sucks. But you are going to die. Just like me. Now, chances are, you won't be stuck with my life, especially if I can never find a successor.

But the truth is, I'm not sure I want a successor. Yes, this job sucks, but I still have a piece of earth. The dead, they are stuck in a nowheresville that they will never get out of; heaven or hell. I travel the earth. I can go anywhere I want in a blink of an eye. I've seen Paris, Ecuador, Kenya, Hong Kong, London and much more.

I guess there are perks to being me, at least a few. The Eiffel Tower was impressive. I'll never forget seeing a lion on the prowl, or all those elephants on the way to the watering hole. Big Ben was a sight too.

Passing on is the only part of my job that is not set in stone for me. I know I have to pick someone else. I don't know what happens after that. When I was chosen, my mentor just sort of disappeared. Do I go to heaven? Do I go to hell? Do I just evaporate into nothing? I do not know. Do I get to keep my memories I've made while holding my place? Do I gain the memories back that I lost when I died? Will I just become a regular angel? I do not know. And that scares me.

But anyway, I know who the killer is. He is all beige. Boring and horrible. Of course, I can't tell anyone. I've come to accept it. I've sat idly by as I watch innocent people be brutally murdered. Poison, arson, shootings, asphyxiation, dismemberment, stab wounds, drowning, lethal injection, forced starvation, explosions, strangulation I learned that that is different from asphyxiation, and I learned how to spell asphyxiation, blunt force trauma, icicle stabbings, crossbows, one time, a woman used a microwave to kill her one month old baby. People are crazy.

Some may say that makes me a bad person, but really, what am I supposed to do? Scream? Useless. I've never even bothered trying. No one would hear me. Take the murderer? I don't know how, and somehow, I think that would be frowned upon.

So I stay quiet, and close my eyes, waiting for the victim to take their last breath, so that my mind is quiet once more. I can't handle the screams, the cries, the tears, or especially the ragged breaths that come from a burst lung or, really, any situation where one is dying. I wait until they are legally dead for at least a minute, and then I do my job and get the hell out of there.

"Okay, team. You know what to do. Lassiter, O'Hara I want you at the crime scene. Dobson, McNab, Averly, go as well. Everyone else, I want you running records." Everyone moved away, and the station was buzzing.

"Chief! What do you want me and Gus to do?" Gus. That's his friend's name. It works.

"Stay put, . As soon as I see a need for you to join this investigation, you will definitely know." She gestured for them to leave. They didn't.

"But, Chief, I'm awesome at solving serial killings, you know that." I smiled. He was so good at charming people.

"Mr. Spencer. Mr. Guster. Out." They turned and walked dejectedly out of the building.

++++++++++

Over the next several weeks, of course, Shawn and 'Gus' did not wait for the Chief's call. They investigated, and Shawn got deeper and deeper into The Treetop Killer's web. I saw him. Robbie Habbardly. I saw him scheming. I knew the tricks he had tucked in his belt.

You see, Robbie Habbardly knew The Fake Psychic. He knew everything about him. Somehow, this man had tracked down every article ever printed on one Shawn Spencer. He knew who was important to him. He knew how to make him tick. Most importantly, he knew he was good.

Shawn Spencer was not a cop. He did not operate within the lines of the system. This helped him a great lot when it came to solving cases quickly. He knew his limits though. He never abused something the police call 'fruit from a poisonous tree,' and he never did anything permanent without the police present. But that didn't matter. Because Robbie Habbardly knew him, inside and out. He knew his patterns, and he knew how to get him to crack.

He did.

+++++++++++

"Chief Karen Vick." She spoke her formal greeting into her work phone.

"I would suggest you get your psychic to back off, Vicky. People very important to him could get hurt. Or they are already. Who knows? Good luck catching me from the trees."

_Dial tone_

+++++++++++

"Mr. Spencer. Get down here. You have a case."


End file.
